Gagarin Way is the debut play by Scottish writer
Gregory Burke who ambitiously says he wanted to write
about the 20th Century.

Set in Fife, the play revolves around the kidnapping
of a multi-national executive (Frank) by an old-school
communist (Gary) and a disaffected worker (Eddie) and
a young security guard (Tom) who is dragged by his
hair into the action.

It is a political comedy and Burke has written
first-class dialogue that crackles and snaps along
with wit and invention.

Eddie, the worker with a wide streak of violence who
has been "outflanked by the fluid nature of modern
demographics", says: "I'm not an anarchist. I don't
like labels and I'm kinda partial to a Big Mac. Which
kinda disqualifies me from the anarchist movement."

Burke has made his play relatively rhetoric-free

But Burke is much more than just a comedy writer - as
the audience roars with belly laughs he creeps up on
the blindside and delivers his message as a sharp
knife in the ribs.

The big themes - capitalism, communism, history,
economics, labour and politics - are all here and Burke
confronts them with the skill of playwright Alan Bleasedale.

The play has much in common with Everything Must Go,
written by Patrick Jones, the brother of Manic Street
Preachers' bassist Nicky Wire.

Both plays are set in former industrial heartlands
with a strong history of socialism and both confront
the impact of multi-nationalism on the area.

But it is to Burke's credit that Gagarin Way - so called
because of a street in Fife named after the Russian
cosmonaut - is relatively rhetoric free where Jones'
play scattered rhetoric like a Gattling gun.